Mekanism Factories Complete Tutorial

If you’ve been using Mekanism machines like the energized smelter, enrichment chamber, crusher, osmium compressor, metallurgic infuser, precision sawmill, chemical injection chambers, purification chambers, and combiners, you may not realize there are significantly more powerful versions available. These enhanced machines are called factories, and they offer dramatic improvements in processing capacity and efficiency. This comprehensive guide covers everything you need to know about Mekanism factories, including how to craft them, upgrade them, and maximize their potential.

Understanding Factories vs. Basic Machines

Factories are enhanced versions of standard Mekanism machines that can process multiple items simultaneously. Using the energized smelter as an example, the basic version processes one item at a time, but factory versions come in four tiers: basic, advanced, elite, and ultimate.

The basic smelting factory features three processing slots instead of one. When you insert tin ore into a basic smelting factory, you’ll notice it only fills one slot initially. However, you can enable auto-sort to automatically distribute items across all available slots for maximum efficiency.

As with standard machines, factories support speed upgrades, energy upgrades, and muffling upgrades. The side configuration remains identical to basic machines, making the transition seamless.

Factory Tiers and Processing Capacity

Basic Factory

The basic factory tier offers three individual processing slots.

Advanced Factory

The advanced factory increases capacity to five individual processing slots.

Elite Factory

The elite factory provides seven individual processing slots.

Ultimate Factory

The ultimate factory offers an impressive nine individual processing slots for simultaneous processing, delivering phenomenal throughput for your operations.

Method 1: Upgrading Factories with Installers

The easiest and most efficient method to create factories is using installers, especially if you need to make multiple machines. Mekanism offers four installer types: basic, advanced, elite, and ultimate.

Basic Installer Requirements

The basic installer requires basic control circuits. To craft these, infuse redstone into osmium using the metallurgic infuser.

Advanced Installer Requirements

The advanced installer requires advanced control circuits and infused alloys, both crafted in the metallurgic infuser using basic control circuits as a component.

Elite Installer Requirements

The elite installer requires two components: reinforced alloys and elite control circuits. Reinforced alloys are crafted by infusing diamond into infused alloys in the metallurgic infuser. Elite control circuits follow the same progression as advanced circuits but represent the next tier.

Ultimate Installer Requirements

The ultimate installer requires atomic alloys and ultimate control circuits. Atomic alloys are created by infusing refined obsidian in the metallurgic infuser, as are ultimate control circuits.

Crafting Refined Obsidian

Refined obsidian is a key component for ultimate tier upgrades. The crafting process involves two steps:

Step 1: Place obsidian into an enrichment chamber to crush it into obsidian dust.

Step 2: Transfer the obsidian dust into a metallurgic infuser along with diamond dust. This creates refined obsidian dust, which can then be used with reinforced alloys to create the atomic versions needed for ultimate installers.

Method 2: Manual Factory Upgrades

Alternatively, you can upgrade factories manually without using installers. This method involves using control circuits directly with existing machines.

For example, to upgrade a combiner, use two basic control circuits with the machine to transform it into a basic combining factory. You can then progressively upgrade it by using the appropriate control circuits: basic to advanced, advanced to elite, and elite to ultimate.

This approach works consistently across all factory types, providing a straightforward alternative to installer-based upgrades.

Factory-Specific Applications

Different machines benefit from factories in specific ways. The metallurgic infuser factory, for instance, allows you to store significantly more of the main resource in its slots. If you’re infusing redstone, you can designate the yellow slot as a much larger reservoir, enabling continuous processing without frequent refilling.

This principle applies to other specialized factories like the injecting factory, purifying factory, and compressing factory—each maintains a substantially larger reservoir for its catalyst component compared to the basic version.

Conclusion

Mekanism factories dramatically enhance your processing capabilities by allowing simultaneous handling of multiple items. Whether you choose the installer method for convenience or manual upgrades for flexibility, factories represent a significant quality-of-life improvement for any Mekanism setup. With tiers ranging from basic to ultimate and nine concurrent processing slots available at the top tier, factories scale with your progression and keep your production lines running at peak efficiency.

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